NUTRITIONAL AND CULINARY QUALITY OF BUSH BEAN POPULATIONS INTERCROPPED WITH MAIZE

The intercropping of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) and maize (Ze a mays L.) is a common practice in the Northwest of the Iberian Penins ula. In this experiment, 25 populations of bush bean were evaluated fo r nutritional and culinary traits of dry seed and immature pod in sole crop and in intercrop in two years and in two locations, in order to determine whether selection of bush bean in sole crop can result in ge netic progress for intercrop. There were no differences in the populat ion means between cropping systems. Significant differences were detec ted among populations for all traits studied except starch content, cr ude ash, water absorption and coat proportion. Population x environmen t interaction was significant for pod thickness. Bean populations did not interact with cropping systems for any trait, although there were differences between cropping systems for crude protein. These results suggest that a sole crop system provides sufficient information to sel ect bean populations efficiently for the bush bean-maize intercropping system, although the advanced generations of the breeding program sho uld be tested for quantitative traits such as protein content in the a ppropriate cropping system (intercropping) to know the competitive abi lity with the associated species. This would permit to choose bush bea n populations which complement more efficiently and would be less comp etitive with the maize population.